ings.

Next, the care of domestic animals will naturally interest the child,
and from her kittens and her hens she will learn much, without
excitement or effort, that will form a basis for the higher truths of
human physiology.

The mother should thus always anticipate in her own mind the needs of
the daughter, and prepare her for the changes in her physical condition
which will come with maturity, in the simplest, the tenderest, and the
most reverent manner. Everything approaching to levity or coarseness of
speech should be utterly avoided, so that, while the young girl will
speak frankly and without shame to her mother or her physician, she will
shun light speaking to chance companions as she would blasphemy.[29] And
here the great lesson of a high standard of health should be
re-enforced. There is no function of woman's nature which in its right
exercise does not tend to strengthen, refresh, and revivify her physical
and mental powers. If healthy, no one need interfere with any rational
enjoyment, any reasonable amount of intellectual labor, or necessary
work. All functions will be best regulated by a full, harmonious, normal
development of all. And in physiology as in religion, the grand paradox
holds true, "that he who loveth his life shall lose it, and he that
hateth it for my sake shall find it."

There is no surer way to destroy the health than to care for nothing
beside it; and the most important condition for the young girl
approaching maturity is to have her thoughts turned from herself to wide
and large interests, and to have her mind and body healthily and
regularly occupied. When any organ is feeble or diseased, the thing most
to be avoided is fastening the mind upon its functions, so that nervous
irritability or congestion is produced. And yet, as I have constantly
intimated, the actual mother has to deal not alone with ideal womanhood,
in full possession of a birthright of health, but very likely with a
feeble and diseased being, who develops new forms of evil in every
crisis of life. There she must be the watchful guardian, and recognize
the limitations of her individual child, and with wise provision
apportion the tasks and the pleasures to her peculiar needs.

While all sickness is the result of broken law, it is rarely mainly the
sufferer's own fault; and the mother will tenderly and lovingly shield
her sickly child, and show her the rich compensations which are possible
to her in mental and spir